Of history, warfare, leadership, and alcohol
Everything we do in the Army seems somehow dehumanizing. We remove individual identity at basic training, in order to meld individuals into a cohesive group. Individuals are referred to by their rank or just their last name. Our entire careers can be summed up on one or two sheets of paper (usually incorrectly). While …
Continue reading "Battle Staff Made Human"
This past weekend, I spent some time re-watching Star Wars episodes IV, V, and VI, or as I call them, Star Wars. Watching them with a critical eye towards leader development, tactics, and strategy, I was struck by a number of critical flaws on both sides that could have been fixed with some basic organizational …
Continue reading "Center for Galactic Lessons Learned"
There’s a common phrase among military members who have deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq as part of the Global War on Terror: Fobbit. It is a play on the words “hobbit,” from J.R.R. Tolkein’s fantasy works, The Lord of the Rings, and the acronym for Forward Operating Base: FOB. Fobbit tends to also be synonymous …
Continue reading "How Forward Operating Bases Created the Illusion of War in Iraq and Afghanistan"
This is a response to the CCLKOW post by Gary M. Klein on Social Media and the Military Leader. Read the post and join the discussion on Twitter #CCLKOW. Last week I was privileged to take part in a Military-Twitter Exchange Summit hosted at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, which brought leaders from across the …
Continue reading "The Birds of War: Twitter as a Professional Development Tool"
As I boarded my flight yesterday morning I realized that it was my first since my trip home from Afghanistan. As we took off, I looked at the New England countryside disappearing below me and I stared, captivated, at the glorious panorama that is America. It was similar to the way that I would stare out …
Continue reading "Thoughts On Beauty"
Two years ago, I was sitting in a conference room inside a dusty tent. HVAC systems and passing helos drowned out the voice of the briefer, but the map that was displayed was enough to get the point across: our footprint in Afghanistan was shrinking. And we were there to make it shrink more. Walking …
Continue reading "Closure is Hard to Find"
This post first appeared on the blog Point of Decision. It is no secret that the U.S. Army is in a time of change and disruption. It is desperately seeking to emerge from an era unprecedented in Army history: fourteen uninterrupted years of direct conflict in a counter-insurgency (COIN) environment in two theaters, with mobilizations …
Continue reading "All Things Old are New Again The U.S. Army and the Changing Operating Environment"
Way back in the hazy days of Army history (1905), there existed a mythical bird: the Oozlefinch. First sighted by inebriated denizens of the Coast Artillery Corps Officer’s Club at Fort Monroe, Virginia, the Oozlefinch was quickly adopted by that corps as their mascot. Allegedly featherless but with large eyes with which to see the …
Continue reading "A Socratic Dialogue with a Staff Officer"
Let's be honest, we all watch far too much television. In the old days, when our ancestors had no electricity and far too many brain cells, they occupied their time by reading silly things like the Iliad and other such classics. Because of this, they were able to associate current events with Classical literature, forming …
Continue reading "If U.S. Wars were Arrested Development Characters"
This post is part of the discussion begun by @rkranc at his site The Stable of Leadership. This discussion centers on the issue of control in leadership: how do you delegate authority, what are your concerns when doing so, and how do you mitigate these concerns, or risks? At this point in the professional development …
Continue reading "The Art of Control"
The Angry Staff Officer 
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